


The Summer House

by considerghostingwontyou



Series: Things To Be Considered [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Ghost Jim, Haunted Houses, M/M, Murder-Suicide, Suicide, Teen Romance, Teenlock, ghost au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-24 12:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2581136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/considerghostingwontyou/pseuds/considerghostingwontyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>((Guess who forgot to write a description at first? ahahahaha *kill me*))</p>
<p>Sebastian Moran couldn't have been less excited about the idea of spending the summer holidays in the middle of nowhere on his parent's new estate in rural Ireland. There's nothing to do, nowhere to go, and everyone he knows is a thousand km away. Add onto that the fact that his mother is determined to restore the crumbling house while they live in it, and you've got a perfect recipe for living heck. <br/>But when it turns out that the mansion is inhabited by ghostly memories of the pervious tenants, and the soul of one James Moriarty in particular, Sebastian finds the waters around him, and that he might just like how drowning feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Can Not Emphasize "Green" Enough

Sebastian had no idea what the _____ was so great about Ireland. They’d landed in Dublin three hours ago, and so far he was not impressed. It was cold, it was wet, and he’d been sitting between his brothers in the new towncar listening to them argue (he’d heard the words “cheese bowling”, but he hoped it was just him hearing things over the blaring Rolling Stones album on his iPod) over his head so long that he was ready to rip out his own eardrums.

If he’d had his way, the Moran family wouldn’t have bought another bloody house at all. They’d have stayed in London in the townhome, or in the country estate, or even have just had himself shipped off to camp again. At least there he’d have friends. Things to do. Places to go. ANYTHING BESIDES THIS MADINGLEY EMPTY GREEN _______ THAT HIS PARENTS HAD CONDEMNED THEM ALL TO.

When the car stopped, Seb could have died. The relief of finally being at the prison where he’s be held captive for the next three months crashed violently into the dread and sinking feeling of knowing that now there was no way out, and then mixed sickeningly with his first impressions of the house. It was… not what Sebastian was prepared for. At all. And that was by far an understatement.

The only explanation was that his mother must have lost her mind. Six Moran children were standing in front of a grand stone Victorian, covered in ivy and scaffolding- they were living in the house while she was going to restore. The whole east wing of the house was rotting away where a landlord had years ago let it fall into disrepair. The mortar was crumbling, the ceiling had holes in it, the windows were gone… “You’ve gotta be _________ kidding me. This is… this is just ….”

But no, that was it. The crumbling structure in front of him was ‘home’, and becoming alarmingly more so as the last of his trunks got dragged inside. Sebastian sighed heavily and dragged himself behind them, over worn, uneven steps and inside. His father had set him up with a suite on the second floor, with big windows and a view of… nothing. Not even the dingey little town that was the only glimpse of civilization that he had. Nothing except green as far as he could see. Miserable, miserable green.

Seb flopped down on the bed with a groan. He fished out his phone and started scrolling, looking up Irene’s and dialing out of habit. At least she’d have something to talk to him about and make him feel better. Maybe there was something interesting happening back home. Maybe she could invite him back for a few weeks. Maybe she could come to him- then at least he’d have her…

“Hi, you’ve reached Irene Adler. Sorry I’m not available, but if you leave me a delicious message, I’ll call you back. Don’t be dull, dear.”

“Rene, I’ve landed in _____. “ A large hand rubbed over his face as he cursed the place out. “There’s nothing here. Just grass, and some sheep a few miles back. I don’t think I’m going to survive this summer… not unless I get a beer supplier and you come down here to keep me company. Or maybe I’ll take up something involving fast cars or gambling or horses or… or shooting. There’s plenty of space for it. Anyways… just call me. Or kill me. Maybe both, yeah?” He stopped, aware of a slight creaking of footsteps on the floor of his room, looking around the empty room for someone who wasn’t there.

  

 


	2. There's Something Wrong With This Place

Sebastian wasn't a believer.

At five years old he'd decided that he was too old to believe in Santa Clause, and had stayed up all night hiding to prove it was the staff arranging presents under the tree. 

By the time he lost his first tooth, he was already skeptical about the tooth fairy- he only kept from rolling his eyes because his mum was the one who was telling him the story.

Religion, aliens, monsters under the bed, fairytales, urban legends, ghost stories... he'd decided it was all beneath him by the time he was twelve years old, even if it was still good for a laugh. So when he started hearing things in his room, he didn't pay any attention to it. After all, it was probably just his siblings playing tricks on him. When he caught hollow voices echoing softly down darkened hallways, he shrugged them off, assuming they came from the workmen somewhere else in the house. Cold spots could be attributed to the drafts that were still getting in, flickering lights were bad fuses, moved objects were just forgetting, and feeling watched when he was alone could be his brothers around the corner, or just late night paranoia.

What were harder to ignore were the things he was starting to see. 

At first it was just shadows. He had nothing else to do, so Seb had taken to exploring the house and leaving messages for Irene. Every morning he'd toss on a pair of worn jeans and a henley, and tie a sweatshirt around his waist. With wool socks tucked into his trainers, and his MP3 player in his pocket he'd climb through the passages of the house and the grounds, mapping it out in his head. It took him a week to make it through the west wing, including the other family member's rooms- those took some maneuvering to get into- and wasn't particularly exciting. Dark stone walls, small windows, and leftovers of another era. Every once in a while, out of the corner of his eye though, he'd see the shadowy form of a man moving, short and thin, built nothing like his family- but it was always gone before he could be sure it was ever there.

When Sebastian ran out of renovated house, he wandered into the east wing. The construction was loud, and obnoxious, and even worse with his mother in the middle of it directing the work and asking the opinions of anyone who passed by, trying not to change her mind a thousand times a day. He tried to avoid that section as best he could, retreating into loud music and the dank, dusty places that she hadn't gotten to yet.

...

It was amazing to see what someone had just left behind there. In fact, the farther that Seb went into the house, the more suddenly abandoned it seemed. While the newer wing had the remnants of a twenties era resident's luxury, the east still had remnants of an era before electric lights were common in the home, and having a telephone was a luxury. Graceful victorian furniture still stood in the rooms, first editions of books no one bothered with anymore mixed in with classics the world held high molded together on the shelves, left there to rot a hundred years ago. Clothes long out of style still hung on in the closets, and there were still sheets on the beds, full of holes from moths and weather damage, and the droppings of animals who'd snuck in over the years.

Most of it Sebastian didn't mind, it was just dirt. When he wasn't paying attention though, he was almost sure that the strange things happened more often. He was  _always_ sure he was being watched, shadows darted behind every corner, the voices and footsteps were closer, louder... the air was even colder, sometimes cold enough that he could see his breath. _  
_

The worst of it though was when he got tired. He'd start wandering back towards his room, seeing shadows as usual when his iPod would short out momentarily, just a long enough for him to hear the sounds of life in a passing room. His large hands would come up to pull out his earbuds, and for a moment, it would all still be there, under a hundred years of undisturbed silence. The clinking of china, the hollow laughter of a dinner party, the barking of a dog so close and erie it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, but so quiet it must have been fields away. Then the shadow would move again, and his head would swing to follow it- and there, in one of the rooms, would be the scene.

Sometimes it was a dinner, with men in fine suits and women in silk evening dresses, sipping wine and laughing. Sometimes it was an angry man, yelling at a maid over a sink full of copper pots, even while she nodded and wrung her hands and tried to apologize. Sometimes it was a boy at his desk, or a woman playing with a small child, or lovers meeting for a secret rendezvous in the moonlight... all there for a few seconds- pale, transparent, roaring silently- and then just as suddenly gone as if they'd never been there at all. Weather he believed his mind was playing tricks on him or no, the spookiness of the place was starting to effect Seb, even if he didn't know what to do about it.

...

"This bloody house has me losing my mind, Rene." He complained, returning a call from inside the wrecked wing, trying to give himself more to do. "It's got me seeing ghosts now, you know that? Whole estate of 'em. Every time I bloody blink, there they are- flipping Victorians, walking around like they own the place, like they aren't just my sanity slowly running out on me here. Yesterday I caught a woman in the bath washing her hair for crying out loud! Is this what happens to people who're alone too long? People without friends? And who aren't getting shagged?" He tried to make himself sound a little more pathetic than he actually felt, hoping against hope Irene had come up with a way to get him out of there. "They start imagining Victorian ghosts haunt their summer home, until they've completely lost it and the ghosts tell them to jump off a cliff? Am I going to jump off a cliff just to get out of here?"

"Well, there are some great cliffs about three kilometers South of you, just in case you feel like trying it."

"Very funny. I thought girlfriends were supposed to be supportive?"

"And I thought boyfriends weren't supposed to leave you alone all summer to play Ghostbusters by themselves. Or at least were supposed to invite you along and try to make out with you while doing it."

"Trust me, it's not my plan, love."

"Uh huh. So I should just throw out the black lace bra I bought this week..."

"Well, no need for that. After all, waste not, want now. Or something like that."

"Darling..."

He started to laugh, licking his lips at the thought of what he'd like to do if they were together- after all, they did have passion for a lot of things- things they were especially good at, and sex was by no means last on the list. At that point though, Sebastian heard the crunch of glass under his feet.  It was crisp, new... glass that hasn't been broken before- odd enough in this house. Inside was a picture of a boy about seventeen, incredibly serious looking for his age, even for the time period. His eyes sparkled under his neatly styled hair and sharply pressed suit- full of mischief and intelligence and secrets, the kind of secrets that would make one's Grandmother roll over in her grave. 

"Crap..." Sebastian whispered to himself, stooping to pick up the photo with wide eyes, staring at the young man in the waist coat, staring at him the way a starving man might have looked at a steak dinner.  _Wow, he's... he's..._ "Wow..."

"What's wow?"

"Nothing... just found a photo. A really old one, from the last owners I think." He slid the phone from his pocket, reading it over and taking in details over and over again. 

"Is that all? Well, like I was saying..."

 


	3. Don't Look at Me Like That

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Apparently I took the weekend off?  
> Sorry guys...  
> It's term paper season, and I spent the entire weekend procrastinating. I've got a presentation on Tuesday, a class to teach on Wednesday night, all sorts of just... random crap. I got behind and now I'm trying to catch up, but it's taking me a little while so, hey, sorry.
> 
> I should be okay now though- Sorry again for having taken the time off.
> 
> Maybe I can get out two chapters???? *she says jinxing herself*

That stupid photograph. 

Seb hadn't been able to stop looking at it since he found it. He'd set it up in it's tarnished frame on his dresser, but he'd spent hours staring at it, so it'd moved to his desk, and then his nightstand. There was something  _haunting_ about that gaze, something that he couldn't ignore, and couldn't get enough of. It was almost terrifying... or... it should have been- the photograph only made Sebastian's suspicions that he was being watched that much worse- but somehow, that didn't bother him. There was something almost pleasant about being gone over by those eyes, torn apart by those piercing eyes... but as sharp as they were, they didn't tear at Sebastian. He'd feel them sometimes, deep inside him, boring into his soul. Or he'd see flashes of those eyes in the scenes while he explored the old wing, the face of that young man would move into those scenes, standing somehow in them and somehow separate, moving closer to the edge and closer to Seb as the days went by.

Eventually, he couldn't take it anymore- he felt he  _had_ to know something about this boy. Anything about him at all. Even if it was just his name. Granted, there had been generations of families living in this house, and pictures exchanged with friends and lovers, then the house had passed through different hands and the wing had been closed and abandoned, used by local groups to try and contact the spirits of other realms. For all Sebastian knew, he could have stumbled over the last remnants of a shrine to someone who'd never lived in this country, let alone in this house. 

That was how he found himself sitting on the floor with a pair of pliers to loosen the rusted fittings that held the back of the frame on, trying to slide the covered metal away. It was dusty and stuck in place, and nicked his thumb when it finally started moving. Seb cursed at the gash and the dark red blood flowing from his finger, pressing it into his white t-shirt to keep it from dripping on the yellowed, crumbling photo paper. Time had already turned some of the paper into a fine powder that he blew away, coughing when it all just blew back in his face. "Oh for crying out-"

But there it was.

_James Richard Moriarty,_

_Seventeen years,_

_Banshee Estate Garden,_

_Ireland, 1895._

"James, huh?" 

Of course, the photograph didn't talk back- he was lucky there had been so much written on the back.

"You look more like a Jim to me. Jimmy Moriarty. Nice to meet you, Jimmy. I assume the Banshee Estate is what they used to call this place- that tree you're in front of is still in the yard. The garden's gone though. Not that we'd have any use for a garden anyways. Mum's the only one who would even try to be interested in it, and she can't even keep a cactus alive." He laughed a little bit at his own levels of patheticness. How far he had fallen- Sebastian Moran, wealthy, attractive, humorous and never without a date- now sitting alone on the floor with a bleeding thumb, talking to a photograph of a boy that was over a century old. At home he'd be getting laid. Here he was losing his mind. "Weather you like it or not, I'm going to call you Jimmy. And maybe try and find... I don't know... there's no way you're still around, right? Maybe your grave? Or your room here? Or... or what happened to you or something. Someone keeps records of that, right? Probably in town at the old churches or something... They'd have some sort of list... like... 'Jim Morarty, born a million years ago, married to the blond in the other big house, popped off a couple of kids and then died. Right? Or born and then moved to somewhere else and good riddance the sorry __________ was annoying as ___________ anyways. Right?" 

The picture starred back at him as if to say " _don't be an idiot, Sebastian. You don't even know what you're looking for. Or where to look. Leave me bloody well alone."_ _  
_

"You know, you could be nicer to me. I bet I'm the only company you've got in your little stupid photo world."

_"Oh _________ off."_

"Arrogant ______________."

He could have sworn that he saw the image roll it's eyes at him, but as soon as Sebastian blinked the sensation was gone and everything was back to normal. He shivered anyways and put the photo back on his nightstand, back in it's frame with the information copied down into his phone for later. "Mind the attitude, Jimmy." He huffed, already up and on his way out of the room to look for something he couldn't name. "Or I'll put you back where I found you and leave you there another hundred years."


	4. High Fevers and Hallucinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jim and Seb have their first interaction.  
> Sort of.  
> Well... you'll see...
> 
> Also please don't be afraid to leave comments about what you like or hate or want to see or see more of.
> 
> I don't bite.   
> Unless you're a Take Five bar.
> 
> No promises if you're my favorite candies. Sorry.

Drafty rooms and a cold, rainy summer, and too many days spent exploring in the crumbling wing and molded curtains left Sebastian weak and ill. At first he was sure it was just a cold and so he ignored it, and then it was the flu, so he just locked himself in his room and tried to ignore it, but after a few days it had him flat out in bed, completely useless. Breathing was a luxury, moving was a horror, sleeping was all but impossible. He was too tired to stay awake, but to miserable to go to bed, and mostly he just lay there, burning up between sips of water or bowls of soup, sweating. 

At some point, he must have lost conscious. He'd come back and realize it was later, or earlier... the sun was up again, or down, or his clothes had been changed for him, or a cloth applied to his head... Sometimes he'd wake with a moan only to hear his mother shushing him back to sleep as her cool hands brought water to his lips, or fluffed a pillow under his head. He vaguely remembered trying to talk to her about something... he wasn't sure what... or if it were anything... but whatever it was, apparently he felt the need to mutter it at her repeatedly in... what... what  _was_ that even? Gaelic? He didn't even  _speak_ Gaelic! It had to be just the illness... just the illness, right? Right. Riiiiight.

Thinking took too much work. Trying to be awake was too much work. Wondering why the colors in his room kept changing was  _certainly_ too much work. But just giving up and riding the waves of his illness? That he could do. That he could deeeeeefinately do. It was easy to give into the grey, and then the darkness, floating on the heat of his body caught in his sheets and the smell of vapor cream rising from the glob on his chest. 

He started to dream about four in the morning on the fifth day. The sun wasn't up yet, but the sky was lightened from inky to midnight blue, and light was just starting to peak over the edge of the horizon. Sebastian's room though, was lit with the warm glow of the light on his vaporizer. As time passed, the light would pulse and fade, pulse and fade... combined with the buzzing of the machine it helped lull the sick man into an almost trance-like state, somewhere between sleeping and waking, the past and the present, life and death. There was no color there, and no English, no Gaelic... just... air. 

"Jimmy, huh?"

Sebastian turned his head towards the voice, searching for the smooth, playful tenor. The sound was bubbling with a brogue as golden and foamy as Irish whisky in the sunlight, and full of the rich darkness of a peat fire in winter. Sebastian curled up a little and nodded, watching, pulling a hazy figure from the grey- a figure full of the dignity and pride of fallen kings, and the danger of ruins still standing. "Yeeeeeeeeeah." He hummed, sighing into his pillow. "'s a good name. I like it. Jimmy. Jiiiiiiimmy. Jimmmmmmy. Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy. It's a great name."

"Maybe for a servant, but hardly for the favored son of the manor." The figure started to take shape. He was young and slight, graceful, but his body was built on thin muscles. He stood with an air of authority with his hands on his thin hips, made more attractive and balanced with his shoulders in his blue waistcoat. "My name is  _James,_ though I don't know you, and from how you're dressed you ought to be calling me Mr.Moriarty."

"Oh ________ off, Jimmy." Seb laughed a little bit. "It's a cute name. And it suits you. You're cute too. Cute cute cute." He stared at him for a few moments, taking in the delicate lines of his face and his pale skin against his dark brown hair and melted chocolate eyes. "You're the boy from my picture. The one on my nightstand." He gestured towards the general direction of the frame. "You're dead. An' you watch all the time. An' you're dead."

"Horribly insightful there. A dead victorian. How brilliant. Did you figure that one out all on your own?"

"Shut up."

"I'd ask what that means, but I've heard it often enough from visitors that your modern disgust of a language that passes for English. What would your Victoria say if she saw the state of her subjects now."

"We've got some nice ________es? And we smell better?" 

"Lovely." James rolled his eyes, "Absolutely lovely."

"What are you doin' here anyways? I'm siiick. An' you're dead." Sebastian's eyes got wide for a moment, and his heart began to pound. "Am I deaaaad too?!"

"No, you're not dead idiot. Why does everyone just assume that they're dead? You all must be absolute imbeciles. Hive-minds, at least. You've no original thoughts what so ever." He raised his voice an octave, mocking as he circled the bed. "'Am I dead?' Oh yes because you must be dead. A whole world of possibilities and the only one that could have happened to you is that you must be dead. Not that you're just  _finally_ focussed enough to see the veil, oh no, no of course not no, you  _must_ be dead!"

"You're mean."

"And you're a prat."

"I bet you're looootsa fun at parties."

James stared him in the eye, suddenly close, his piercing eyes cutting like knives into Sebastian's soul. "And I wager you're the pride of your family, you who will not study, you who sluts around with wanton women and dirty men, you who has no desire for industry or creation, you who offers your family nothing by way of connections, or money, or a profitable marriage, or even image by way of talent or charity or honor. You must be the favored son of your family, such an inspiration, such a golden, shining example of an eldest son." He spat the words, icy and searching. "You've no ambition, no prospects, no... no  _future_! And yet you live. How cruel the fates have been."

"Shove off."

"How original."

"What, an' you're so high an' mighty are you? You're not even alive! You're a hallucination. An' not even a grown hallucination- just a stupid teenage hallucination based on a old forgotten pic in a moldy rotted wing of a house in the middle of bloody nowhere! Do ya think anyone here misses you? Remembers you? I betcha your clothes are still in your closet an' your things are still in your desk! I betcha someone didn't even care enough to nick your pocket money. Does someone visit your grave? Did ya' grow up nice? Have good grades, make your family some money and fame, marry a nice honest girl?! Or are ya a hypocrite just as much as ya' are a windbag with a stick up your-" James tried to slap him, but his hand passed through Sebastian's face- something that made the ghost curse, and Sebastian shiver, staring as he went silent. "You... you aren't a hallucination... are you?"

"No." James stiffened and straightened himself, backing away and fading at the edges as the sounds of a Victorian dinner party started to filter through to Sebastian's sickbed, just before both boy and sounds were gone. "No, I most certainly am not."

 

**Author's Note:**

> I will try to update daily- but it's term paper season, so we'll see how it goes.


End file.
